1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates to a bypass for cars of a circuit cable railway system, and in particular, to a bypass having a side track disposed between the incoming and outgoing tracks of the bypass and a rotating platform for directing the cars to and from the side track.
2. Description of the Related Art:
A conventional circuit cable railway includes at least one conveying cable, to which carrying cars are attached, and has at least two stations, for example, a valley and a mountain station. These stations are the turn-about stations at which the conveying cable is turned by turn-about wheels, which are either towed or driven. An intermediate station can be placed between the mountain and valley stations, through which the conveying cable passes and through which the cars are slowly advanced.
Coupling points are typically present at the incoming as well as the outgoing sides of the stations. At the incoming coupling point, the cars advancing on the conveying train cable at, for example, up to 6 m/sec are decoupled from the cable and slowed to a slow feeding velocity of about 0.2 m/sec, at which rate they drive around the platform of the station on a station track.
In the stations, the station track extends from the incoming coupling point to the outgoing coupling point. Hence, the passengers can board and depart from the cars at the platform. At the outgoing coupling point, the cars are accelerated to a velocity synchronous to that of the conveying train cable and recoupled to the cable.
In order to adapt the circuit cable railway system to the required transportation capacity at a given time, unused cars are parked on the side tracks of a garage at any of the stations. The garage capacity is estimated by the entire number of cars that are parked and protected from the weather when the system is not in operation.
Since the turn-about wheels for the conveying cable at a turn-about station are generally placed directly between the incoming and outgoing portion of the station tracks, the side tracks of the garage are usually situated outside of the station tracks, and are typically arranged in the shape of a loop. The cars are directed to the side track by an incoming switch and fed out from the side track by an outgoing switch, as shown, for example, in European Patent Applications EP 369 981 B1, EP 306 771 B1, EP 245 163 B1 or French Patent Application FR 24 96 029.
In FIG. 3 of EP 369 981 B1, the station track of a bypass is shown, on which the gears, moving synchronously in the direction of travel, are connected together and guided over intermediate gears, and the cars are advanced through the station track while frictionally engaged therewith. A DMC cable guidance is described in EP 399 919 A1. Two self-contained conveying train cables are diverted from the level of the coupling point at the station, before they turn around at the mountain and valley stations. Each of the conveying cables are crossed once to change tracks on the turn-about wheels, and are conveyed in parallel in the area of the conveying track at the same height.
Both synchronous cables create a broad mountain to valley track across which the cars are conducted stably, and are virtually unaffected by crosswinds. Since the cable turn-abouts occur in levels moving opposite the coupling points, the bypass is free of turn-about wheels. Column 6, lines 8-16, of EP 399 919 A1 further describe the side tracks of the garage as being positioned in an open area between the mountain line and valley line at each station.